Customer Reviews

The Cold Road

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I can see why the critics have liked The Cold Road, since it's packed with excitement and kept me turning the pages from start to finish. The contrast between things hot and cold, from the characters and the setting throughout the novel to the emotional impact, really worked for me. It's a great read.
Can't wait for the next one from Wilber...

Cold, as defined by the Oxford American dictionary, is a lack of heat or an item that is faint because it is no longer fresh. Melissa O'Malley experiences an undeniable internal chill throughout "The Cold Road" by Dr. Rick Wilber. Participating in Dr. Wilber's class and journeying along "The Cold Road" proved to be an exciting excursion.

This is a powerful novel.

Supreme contrast of hot and cold is evident.

Dr. Wilber's ability to capture a teenager's inner personality transcends his knowledge of his audience. Wilber commissions individuals to search for the truth. Melissa O'Malley searches for her own personal truth by seeking her authentic reality. In "The Cold Road" Melchoir O'Malley, brought supposedly warm gifts to his daughter Melissa in the wintry north. On the other hand, Dr. Rick Wilber brings zealous gifts of education and awareness to his readers in the cold world in which we live.

Patrick J. Burley

I'm delighted to see that virtually all reviews for COLD ROAD lavish Rick Wilber's novel with five stars out of five; if there was a sixth star reserved for inventive fiction fusions, COLD ROAD certainly deserves it.

As a writer myself, I have to admit that these days only a true storyteller can grab me with his opening paragraphs and keep me bound to the journey through to final page; my house is filled with partially-read novels I gave up on because they lacked the sort of curious scenes, fascinating characters, breathtaking prose and originality of storyline that I now require to justify time away from my own writing.

Rick Wilber's masterful COLD ROAD has scenes and passages that had me up on my feet, pacing my writing room in admiration. The book is a powerfully wrought fusion novel that reminded me of Tim Power's DECLARE in its subtle blend of fantasy-horror and gritty realworld setting, and of Peter Straub's THE THROAT in its unforgettable characterizations.

Melissa O'Malley is one of the most complex and convincingly realized female characters I've encountered on the page ... the settings in Minnesota and St. Kitts are so richly visualized that Wilber's descriptions left me yearning to visit (St. Kitts) or to avoid (Minnesota in winter) ... the sustained eeriness of Melissa's obeah powers---and the way they play out in the novel's climax---are impressive indeed.

Don't want to spoil the book for you, so I'll just have to cuss:

Damn, this man can write!

Seems to me the best writers on the planet are all doing fusion novels. Writers like Neal Stephenson, Neal Gaimon, Tim Powers, Charles de Lint, and China Mieville, who are striking off in new directions with visionary recombinations of genres, expanding the possibilities of popular fiction.

Rick Wilber joins their ranks with COLD ROAD, and my advice is to run, don't walk, to your nearest bookseller to get a hold of this marvelous read.

I became familiar with the author's writing in his science fiction/fantasy short stories. The literary style carries over in the thriller realm in the Cold Road.
The strengths here are in three characters: a well-crafted protagonist, a somewhat twisted murder suspect and the doggedness of a Minnesota cop.
It's a pleasant read and a good first novel.

Wilber's novel is chock full of unanswered questions, just the way I like 'em. The juxtaposition of hot and cold in the book adds to the conflict. The characters are believable and the ending is a shocker. I couldn't put this one down.

The Cold Road is a cohesively constructed psychological vestry that gives the reader a room with a clear view of blurred facts and fiction for today's social horrors. From Holding companies to a Father's greatest Fear, DOc's Perseverance and dilligent attention to details, with regards to the construct, portrays an unfamiliar persistance (given the rush of Coffee Shop Evolutions) which illuminates the reader by the last page...with revelations.

Good blend of suspense, shock, and mystery, all with a flavoring of island mysticism underlying the story. The character development is strong, and I found myself caring about what was going to happen to the people in the story - the way a good book will pull you in. I liked the sharp constrast between the frozen winter settings in Minnesota and the tropical islands. You could tell the author has spent time in both locals. All in all a good read and a fun time.

The Cold Road is worth your time: alternately sexy, sobering, and tense. It is a mystery, a bildungsroman, a thriller, and a fantasy novel. Wilber makes you feel the bone-deep cold of January in Minnesota, the bright heat of St. Kitts, and the pain and confusion of growing up. Read it during the summer, then go back and read it in the winter.

In "The Cold Road," Rick Wilber has produced a satisfying mystery, thriller, detective, romance with dashes of sci-fi and horror. Readers of Dean Koontz - another guy who'll mix and match genres in a New York second - will likely find this one simpatico.

Wilber paints his story on a large canvas - involving us in a series of grisly murders in the frozen Minnesota (pardon the redundancy) woods, as well as murder and corruption on sunny St. Kitts in the Caribbean. The novel makes a brief stop in the Tampa Bay Area for the protagonist to play basketball for and graduate from Eckerd College in St. Petersburg.

Not satisfied just to take chances with form and geography, Wilber, a grown man, chooses to make his protagonist an adolescent girl becoming a young woman, showing us how she struggles to understand how she fits into the world from age 14 to her mid-twenties.

And it's a tougher fit than most for Melissa O'Mally, whose mother disappeared when Melissa was five and who is raising herself with little help from a father who is distant and more than a little odd.

As a teenager, Melissa finds solace in fantasy fiction and playing basketball. Wilber does a good job of evoking the anxieties of adolescence, including the overwhelming importance of making an athletic team and the fear of not making it. Ex-jock Wilber also paints convincing scenes of Melissa competing on the court.

As Melissa gets older the questions get harder - what to study, what to do about sex and men - maybe about sex and women - what kind of work to do, where to live? As if these questions, along with her family background, weren't enough to challenge any two young women, Melissa also has these damn visions - visions where she sees clearly what people and animals have experienced moments before their death.

Melissa must also deal with Minnesota's artic winters - where forty-below is not an exaggeration but the forecast. Daunting for anyone, but perhaps even more so for Melissa who has inherited the thin blood of her mother, who was from Jamaica, a descendent of the Irish who escaped the miseries of the auld sod in the 1840s by coming to Barbados as indentured servants.

Finally, Melissa must cope with the unexpected death in combat of her fiancé, Danny, who she has known and loved since she was three. The connection with Danny outlives him because Danny's father, Dan Finnegan, a police detective investigating a series of murders of young girls and their mothers in Blue Earth County, maintains a connection and treats Melissa like the daughter in law she would have become had Danny lived. Finnegan eventually realizes that Melissa's visions may hold the answer to the horrific but seemingly unmotivated murders that have tormented him and defied all his efforts to solve.

Melissa's choice of men isn't always good. Danny was a keeper, but her second pick, Bo, is a charming snake. But at least he gets her to St. Kitts, there to be PR director for Bo's family's resort, which turns out not to be all it seems to be.

It's in St. Kitts that Melissa makes the acquaintance of potential guy #3, finds where she truly want to live, and unwittingly gets involved in a case of murder and business corruption with some real threatening bad guys who start out holding most of the cards. She also meets an old woman obeah - a form of witchcraft practiced in the West Indies - who recognizes similar powers in Melissa.

In the final chapters of "Cold Road," Melissa learns to trust and use her powers to face the evil both in Minnesota and in St. Kitts. And to learn a great deal about herself and about what happened to her mother. The last part of "Cold Road" - though not for the faint of heart - will keep readers turning pages. And will make them hope Wilber keeps turning out thrillers.

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My only complaint about the book was that it held kept me glued trying to find out what would happen next. Just when I thought I was finished, I would find myself reading a couple more chapters to find some type of stopping point. The vivid descriptions and development of the main characters let me escape into another world where all that mattered was solving the mystery and knowing how everyone would finally turn out. It's a great murder mystery that will keep you guessing until the end. Highly recommended.